Campaign of the Month:
May 2009

Forgotten Realms: The Savage North

In which we destroy Vlaakith's phylactery, Tu'narath falls and Mystra returns to the world

After bringing Mystra back to life, we head back through the chamber filled with ectoplasmic tendrils and calcified githyanki bodies. It seems like something had killed them from below.

We get across without incident and return to the portal that brought us here and head to the section that we hadn’t been to yet.

Ectoplasmic strands stretch across the chamber around a prismatic hemisphere extending up from the floor. Wisps of ectoplasmic are obliterated when they touch the prismatic hemisphere.

We dance around and try to figure out how to negate the layers of the prismatic sphere. Most of our plans consist of simply touching it and trying to trigger each layer.

Sardon uses his spellscar to consume the last layer in a blinding flash. Vlaakith’s emaciated face ripples across the sphere and Sardon’s scar is healed.

Inside the sphere is a sarcophagus with no marks other than a circular symbol on it – the astral driftmetal key that we only have 3/4 of.

We use linked portal to jump back to near the entrance to the Fortress of Whispers to try to find the last remaining piece.

The astral dreadnought training chamber is filled with githyanki fighting each other – the rebels used our distraction to launch their assault. Dozens or even hundreds of Kelemvor’s astral vessels are attacking as well, shattering the very walls of the Fortress.

Heading to where we last detected the key, we find a throne room with the infernal dragon Holocaust and a throne made entirely of mindflayer skulls. Doomguide Faractus is hovering in the air, bound by spectral shackles, her face locked in a grimace of pain.

Vlaakith is upon the throne and clearly not pleased by our presence. Despite our witty banter, she is not pleased – especially whem Zamkress reveals himself to be part of the rebellion!

Combat ensues!

We manage to kill Holocaust and most of Vlaakith’s minions and Zareb-kahn grabs the last piece of the key to her sarcophagus.

We race through the battered Fortress of Whispers as it lilts to the side, one of the chains attaching it to the city was destroyed by the fleet. Arriving back at the sarcophagus, we assemble the key and open it. Loakan destroys the lich-queen’s phylactery.

We return to the Fortress and the black marble walls have turned white. Every few seconds, a soul is released and ascends to freedom among Kelemvor’s fleet.

The Debt of All Men picks us up and takes us back to the throne room but Vlaakith is gone, along with some specific items from the dragon’s hoard. Only gold and gems remain (1,123,460 gp total).

We are able to track someone going through one of the portals from the throne room. The trail leads to the teleportation circle.

The Kelemvor navy then completely destroys the Palace of Whispers.

The githyanki high inquisitor explains that the rebellion raided the godsblood supply, but it was already gone and the storage area had been destroyed. Apparently after Mystra’s resurrection, she reclaimed the godsblood and signaled to both the githyanki rebellion and the Kelemvorite fleet to attack.

The rebellion now rules Tu’narath.

Epilogue

Theran follows Mystra’s command to return to the world and preach her return.

Loakan returns to the keep in the north to rule the north with an even hand, keeping the peace.

Sammael converts a githyanki ship into a plane-traveling casino with full service entertainment.

Zareb-kahn chronicles the return of the Weave and how magic changes with the god’s return.

Sardon gathers the remaining Wheloon Seven (who are not duplicitous back-stabbers… so like 3 of them) to form a new adventuring group and explore Returned Abeir.

Loose Ends

Malgannon showed up Baldur’s Gate after we had thwarted the evil plans there. He was at a loss for what to do at that point and disappeared. He is still alive and has left the world for Sigil, working as a servant of the Lady of Pain.

Fortune and Miranda left Baldur’s Gate and disappeared as well. MIranda was a succubus (shocking!) and has taken Fortune to Tytherian (in the Nine Hells).

Mystra’s return reinforced the bonds on Vulnazzar, locking him away forever and preventing him from reaching out into the world again.

to the northwest, a cavern densely filled with floating motes of light (which appear to be the leftover remains of the dead god’s life-force)

to the southeast, it goes 80 ft before curving off to the right

to the northeast, goes 40 ft before curbing to the left, with a steep incline.

We head to the northwest, looking for the “heart of the dead god.” Upon entering the room, we are all seized by a soul-shaking terror. Everyone but Loakan and Theren flee. They search the chamber and don’t find anything other than realize that there is such a fear powerful spell in the area that slowly poisons subjects in the area. Upon leaving the chamber, everyone else can see waves of fear radiating off the two of them like waves of heat.

We head down the southeast corridor and reach a 20’ circular chamber filled with more motes of light. We are squeezed together with each other, and everyone feels fear rising off of Theren and Loakan, almost throwing them into a terror again.

This chamber wracks everyone with soul-crushing despair, though we find a room filled with golden light on the other side, with exits to the west and south. The motes in this room are bright yellow instead of blue and wispy. A particularly bright one seems attached to Sammael and tries to lead him onward.

The mote leads him to the south, to a cavern filled with ectoplasmic stalagmites and stalactites, taking him into a further tunnel that turns out to be a dead-end. Only when the good-aligned characters reach the hallway does a presence reveal itself in their minds. Once it washes over us, we receive the following benefits:

+2 bonus to initiative

+4 bonus to death saves

We recall unfamiliar memories; the presence must have been the remnants of the dead god.

Taking the western passage off the chamber of the golden motes and it branches to the north and the southwest. The southwest passage is filled with ghostly webs with petrified githyanki. The chamber leads back to the portal we entered.

Heading to the north, we find another chamber of calcified filaments. Acrobatically maneuvering through the filaments, Sammael finds a floating light in the middle of the room. Walking into it, it wracks hiim with pain. It’s a sphere of positive energy, and we’re still technically undead.

Theran activates a phasing power to rescue Sammael. He is able to identify the positive energy nimbus as the residue of the god’s life force. Theran inserts the godsblood sword into it – it sucks it in and reacts with the sword. We see a flash of a spectral woman and then she’s gone. We’re convinced that we have resurrected Mystra.

Vlaakith’s Malefic Librum (made of death slaad skin, her personal spell book containing all paragon level rituals & the ritual to create duthka’gith)

We decide to cast consult oracle from Vlaakith’s spellbook to ask the location of her phylactery. This summons a bound balor. We ask five questions:

Who is scrying us? The lich-queen

What form does her phylactery take? A plain adamantine box

How can the phylactery be destroyed? Loakan’s sentient mace smashes the box

How do we get to the phylactery? You must pass through the portal to the layer of Dessakrul deep into the heart of the dead god

What is the significance of this key of astral driftmetal? _It opens Vlaakith’s sarcophagus.

We run back through the treasure chamber and up the ectoplasmic “throat” back into the chamber with the life-trap mirror and portals elsewhere in the tower.

We go through the portal deeper into the caverns inside the dead god and find a cave filled with milky-white gossamer strands that drift in a breeze that’s not there. We find a path ahead, and a half-hidden tunnel behind the portal as well.

We take the tunnel behind the portal to a teardrop-shaped chamber with two duthka’gith standing guard. They go invisible before we’re able to neutralize both of them. One runs off to wake up Dessakrul, fly-tackling Sammael into the dragon’s nest and pit, waking the great beast up.

In which we bust open a bunch of treasure chests and totally piss of a purple mold

We continue to explore the second floor, traveling through hexagonal chambers with undead, fleshy tapestries hanging on the walls. We ultimately find a laboratory with many floating shelves with a variety of experiments brewing on them.

Going through the other hallway, we find that it quickly turns into an undulating, ectoplasm cylinder ending in a swirling grey portal that is apparently deadly to living creatures. We find a secret passage nearby and follow it to a large chamber. Inside is a devil sits in silver circle. An obsidian shelve circles the room with twelves different, distinct chests on it.

The chests (all locked):

Fashioned from astral driftmetal, lined with spikes

Alchemically-treated wood, with a death slaad’s skull molded into its lid

Mortared illithid and githzerai spines, adorned with illithid skulls

Bronzewood sculpted in the likeness of a dragon, painted with red scales and a locked shaped like a dragon’s head

Alchemically-treated wood, wrapped in demon skin and adorned with horns and protrusions

Darkwood, glazed githzerai eyes set in the curved lid

Thick gold dragon hide with iron handles and fittings

Iron with clawed feet, iron handles and a built-in lock shaped like a leering githyanki skull

Alchemically treated human skin stretched over a frame of bone, with iron fittings and bone handles

Jade, covered in green slaad skin with githyanki symbols engraved on the lid

We bash our way through the first chest and find a rune that blasts our minds. Everyone but Sardon appears possessed and walks out the secret door back to the ectoplasmic hallway. We shake it off just before being moving sidewalked to our death.

In the chest Sardon finds very valuable books in the chest. They re-arrange their lettering to allow him to read them. They are the:

Manual of Gainful Exercise

Manual of Quickness & Action

Manual of Bodily Health

Tome of Clear Thought

Tome of Understanding

Tome of Leadership and Influence

We try to detect more pieces of the astral driftmetal key and are able to determine that one of the potions we had gotten from Zamkress’s lab is actually a piece. Pouring it over the key, it reforms a quadrant of the key.

Smashing open #10: 3 githzerai heads with black gems (holding a pinpoint of light) stuffed in their mouths. The gems are apparently the equivalent of magic jar spells.

Smashing open #6: six green flasks with more ectoplasmic green liquid.

Smashing open #9: full of ectoplasmic mucus, filled with risiduum. This is apparently an ancient technique to combined large amounts of ridisuum with the life force of sentient creators as part of the process to create intelligent magic items. Loakan submerges his mace and it becomes a +6 sentient item.

We throw alchemist’s frost and then alchemist’s fire on the purple mold and it just fills 2/3rds of the room. We find another secret passage on the western wall and Loakan jumps through, finding what looks like a library filled with scrolls and three books on a lectern. Floating in the middle of the room is a humanoid figure covered in wrappings, wreathed in black flames. It points at him and curses.

The creature begins to murder Loakan. Actually, it tries to turn him to stone and then floats there, doing nothing much. He backs out and apparently it lets him.

At a loss of what else to do, Sardon drinks one of the ectoplasmic potions and it turns him into some sort of undead creature (a temporary lich).

Considered to be medium shadow humanoid (undead)

Immune to poison & disease

Resist 10 necrotic, vulnerable 10 radiant

We then jump through the swirling grey portal at the end of the ectoplasmic hallway. We arrive in a spooky room notably with eggs on a table, dragon bones all around an a big mirror facing the door. Upon entering, it feels like something is trying to pull at our souls.

Through the mirror, we see a horde of githyanki wandering and banging on the other side of the mirror. Some appear to be glamored to look like githyanki, though.

Through the left-hand alcove is a green portal leading to a network of caves made of a black, crumbling stone – they are carved into the body of Tu’narath.

The right-hand alcove holds another portal leading to dimly lit chamber with obsidian walls and floors. A short hallway leads to double-doors and stairwells on either side head up. It radiates heat.

We decide to head back to fight the floating guy in the library-like room.

Now with 200% more heroism

We explore the entrance chamber for Vlaakith’s chambers, finding two illusionary walls/secret chambers.

One hidden chamber has two illusionary walls of its own.

A hidden room between the two original secret doors holds a triangular table built of flesh and bone, with chairs adorned with tiny demon skulls. Powerful skulls line the walls in alcoves as well. We take a few trophies.

Exploring the other secret door off the first small room and find a vaulted chamber that is completely empty except for a shaft extending through the ceiling. Our minds are assaulted by vile thoughts as some psionic spell or creature burrows into our minds and tries to consume our memories, but we’re able to fight it off.

Heading back to the entrance chamber and going through the other secret door, we find a black sarcophagus with a githyanki knight on it and (shockingly) no more secret doors. The floor is covered in a layer of bones.

Opening the sarcophagus sets off runs that suck the moisture out of Loakan. The attack would have killed a lesser goliath, but he stood strong. Inside is a mummified knight with jeweled armor with a scorpion motif. A shattered great sword with a scorpion hilt lies next to him.

Underneath his helmet is a piece of astral driftmetal that merges with the other piece that we found before. It’s beginning to look like parts of a disc.

Zerab-kahn recalled that this was apparently The Scorpion, an ancient and powerful githyanki pirate who raided the mortal realm and almost conquered all mortal races.

Loakan and Sammael climb up the shaft in the psionc trap room and encounter ghostly duthkagith guards.

Combat ensues!

During the fight, one of the guards left to tell the Lich Queen we were there and Sammael jumped down the shaft to kill him. Zereb-kahn jumped down after him (in water form).

Wherein we explore Vlaakith's personal chambers

Taking refuge with Zetch’r’r, we explain what happened in the Palace of Whispers (somehow he’s impressed with this). He is very interested in the Inquisitor’s private journal.

Sammael, still bothered by being a warped dragonborn, asked Vrax to reincarnate him and restore him to drow-dom.

Instead, a male tiefling appeared, claiming to be Morden Moonblade. We retire to talk while Vrax tries to recover Sammael from the Beyond.

The next morning, Sammael magically returned, saying that his soul had been held by Vulnazzar. The devil had apparently been very insistent, wanting to get Theren back into the fold, offering to restore Sammael to his drow form.

Sammael refused, but apparently was reborn anyway. We found him in the reading room in the morning. Moonblade has disappeared as well.

Zetch’r’r offers more support when we return to the palace, and we have him identify the random potions we found:

He also gives us 6 potions of resistance (fire) and explains that Holocaust actually serves a duthkagith wizard (Zr’kiil, one of Vlaakith’s most powerful spellcasters). Zetch’r’r also protects us from the palace whispers by deafening us and giving us telepathy amongst ourselves.

We use linked portal to return to the “exit chamber” in the Palace of Whispers and are almost immediately scryed upon.

We head through the Dreadnought Hall and open the portal on the other side to reveal a room shaped like the inside of an enormous basketball of sewn illithid flesh, writhing in agony. On the far side of the room is another door, shaped to hold an ectoplasmic door, but filled with opaque silvery-grey mist instead. The illithid flesh undulates like creatures are desperate pushing through from the other side, probably human or githyanki souls or bodies.

The chamber appears to be Vlaakith’s personal meditation chamber, and the silvery-grey mist would cause any creature moving through it to re-live every wound they have ever experience.

Dissipating the silver pain mist, we find a room containing enormous frescos of aspects of the warrior Gith. There are several doors:

to the west is a door filled with stitched flesh

to the east is an open passageway leading to another room of statues.

The statues appear to be all the different Vlaakiths, all prostrate towards a sarcophagi shaped like a red dragon with the inscription “death befalls all those who disturb the ashes of Gith.”

Burning the undead flesh door, we find several zombie githyanki apparently guarding an illithid writhing in agony, with bodies of other creatures impaled on spikes all around the room.

Cutting through another flesh-door, we find another large chamber filled with obsidian statues of demons and robed wizards in some sort of chamber of trophies, including a pile of githzerai heads, a plucked vrock and a human girl with bronze hair (who reveals herself as Azenstar, a bronze dragon who lived with the gnomes and served as a mount for a gnome paladin).

Where in we take the wise route and flee from the red dragon

Stuck in a pseudodragon body, Sammael drinks another random potion, transforming into a dragonborn.

He was unhappy with that, so he drank another random potion and gained a blind third eye.

Still not satisfied, he drinks another potion, but isn’t able to notice any changes.

We don’t let him drink any more potions.

Theren got some psychic power from drinking a position and used it to start opening the psychic doors.

The first one we tried led to a cell with a githyanki hanging from the wall while a ghost of a slain githyanki warrior watches over him.

The prisoner’s name was Ellv, a member of the githyanki resistance. Healing him and releasing him caused the spirit to attack.

Combat ensued!

During the fight, the spirit used its silver sword to send Theren to a pocket dimension, where he sees the navy of Kelemvor attacking the Nine Hells.

We defeat the spirit and Ellv is able to identify one of the potions as an instant linked portal. He is also able to tell us that the library is on the second floor. To get to the second floor, we need to go through the Black Heart (past the Dreadnought Hall). He also shares the command word (“Zankor”) for a teleportation circle accessible from the Dreadnought Hall (north).

Leaving the room and heading toward the Dreadnought Hall, we encounter three more duthkagith and female githyanki in red lacquered armor.

Combat ensued!

We manage to kill the duthkagith, but the female githyanki in the armor turns into a dragon we are unable to defeat. We retreat and use the portal Ellv told us about to escape – we reappear back in the courtyard with the statue of Gith that we used to teleport into the citadel.

We use the linked portal potion to teleport to the resistance safehouse, the portal closing just as the red dragon appears but it’s unable to follow us through.

Wherein we murder another beholder and drink some random potions

Inside the hidden room, we find a table, another rejuvenation egg and a chest of drawers, filled with githyanki robes that have been cut short – and we realize that the high inquisitor is supposed to have no legs. We also found two more illusionary walls.

One leads to what appears to be a ritual chamber. We find 6x potion of vitality and about a dozen unmarked vials of random potions that we are unable to identify. We also find a secret laboratory table with his research notes and a magical scroll of “clone” (a unique effect).

In the other chamber, we find a cylinder of light with a toad-like creature inside it, groaning. A beholder with mechanical arms and a legless gityhanki stand next to it, watching.

Combat ensues!

We manage to destroy the beholder, but the maimed inquisitor managed to escape.

We also drink two random potions. One of them gives Theren power points and the ability to open doors. The other one turned Samael into a pseudodragon.

In which we learn to absolutely hate githyanki doors

We’re stuck in a chamber with 5 ectoplasmic portals, each working as some barrier blocking the exits. They respond to psychic energy (of which we have none, so we have to just attack them to try to get through, and pseudopods lash out against us).

Zareb-kahn, searching for any information that could help, remembered that one of Vlaakith’s greatest red dragon allies is Desacrul, a two-headed red dragon of impressive power.

Eventually we just break through one to find a chamber with two apparent rejuvenating tanks for duthka’gith. We decide to destroy them and combat ensues.

Treasure:

2 +2 silver greatswords

+2 silver longsword

2 +1 magic longbows

30 pp

heavy iron key

Going back into the main chamber, we find an illusionary wall leading to a hallway with more portals and a room of 9 duthka’gith training. We sneak down the corridor and attempt to disenchant one of the portals.

We were being scryed on again and when we almost reached the end of the ritual, the duthka’gith got orders to go search for intruders trying to break into the inquisitor’s chambers.

They turn the corner and Sammael tried the usual “they went that way” lie, and they githyanki actually buy it, allowing us to complete the ritual. Inside the room, we find two more rejuvenation chambers, a shrine and a chest (containing inquisitor wrappings, along with 150 pp and twelve 100 gp pearls).

In a false bottom, we find a leather-bound book with bone bindings, an inquisitor’s journal (Sziin) and ritual book. Apparently this inquisitor joined the rebellion and learned rituals from them. It also references draining psionic essence from creatures.

We head back to the main room where the duthka’gith were dueling, searching for another way out. The desiccated corpse of an astral dreadnought hangs from the ceiling. The room is littered with the remains of dead adventurers, still with their equipment:

+2 magic plate armor with the symbol of Moradin

bag of holding containing a suite of +2 magic chainmail, +2 double-bladed sword, +3 amulet of protection and 3 potions of healing. It is also stitched with an elven inscription: Valceron Stormbow

a piece of astral driftmetal that might be part of an over-sized key

Loakan, climbing around, notices that the flayed, mindflayer corpse at the back of the hall has a rune on it’s skull that will crystalize anyone who disturbs it. He also notices that the end of the hallway we came from seems to let a crack of light through some times and not others, so we explore to see if it’s an illusion.